Dreams from the Witch House: Female Voices of Lovecraftian Horror Read online

  Minny glided to the table and put down the tray. “They say that seals can sing,” she said, and smiled. “You’ve been looking at the pictures. Don’t get lost in our old book, now, will you?”

  “I think I already am,” Cara said with a laugh that sounded too bright, too loud.

  Minny smiled back as she poured the tea. “They weave a spell, that’s for sure. When we were girls we were always playing in that world, down on the shore.”

  “You look like a mermaid,” Cara said, unable to stop the words. She was pushing the story, she knew. Perhaps this was unwise.

  Minny’s smile widened to a grin. She lifted her long skirt a little, struck a pose with dainty feet. “You see, no fish tail. Don’t be disappointed.”

  “Maybe you can change, shed your skin,” Cara said.

  “Maybe I can,” Minny said mischievously. “May I see what you’ve done?”

  Cara returned to the table and showed Minny the first few pages she’d laminated.

  “Oh, that does look better,” the woman said. “How clever.”

  “Minny,” Cara said tentatively, and the woman glanced up at her, a little sharply, perhaps because of Cara’s tone and what might follow.

  “What, m’love?”

  “Oh… nothing. I’m just fanciful!”

  “It’s this place,” Minny said warmly. “Mordarras is like a little dream in the cold of the world. And there’s nothing wrong in being like a child again, full of wonder.”

  “You’re lucky to live here.”

  “Well, perhaps, but surely others choose to live where they do?”

  Cara was silenced by these words, thinking about them.

  Minny said, “Well, must get on. Judy won’t be here for lunch, but I’ll lay something out for you. Eat when you’re ready.”

  “Yes. Thanks.”

  §

  Cara didn’t feel like eating lunch. She worked on, part of her wanting to proceed swiftly, while another part—perhaps the child Minny had spoken of—wanted to delay, to prolong the work. Yet Marvels of the Deeps was a remarkably cooperative patient. The protective sheets slid onto the pages, hardly needed moving or shaping, never wrinkled, but adhered perfectly.

  Does it want me gone? Cara thought.

  The pictures had continued to guide Cara around the city, down into phosphorescent grottoes, up into forests of weeds. She met astounding sea creatures—immense squids who were ancient and wise, barely moving; fluttering veils of fishes who danced before her in fractal patterns; grouchy old crustaceans weighed down with dependent limpets. She stepped through a crowd of haloed anemones, which opened and closed as she passed. She came to a fan of coral in a shrine that glowed with its own eerie light. All of this within the half ruined arches and colonnades of the wondrous city. No people, though. The sea creatures didn’t count. Cara was sure there were people, but they were hiding. The pictures were leading her away from the central temple but she wanted to return. Surely the book couldn’t just finish without revealing its greatest secret? She wanted to skip to the end, but she couldn’t. She was held back, forced to reveal each new picture only as she worked on its page.

  §

  By late afternoon, Cara was exhausted and very hungry. Judy came to find her. “You didn’t eat your lunch,” she said accusingly.

  “Sorry, engrossed,” Cara said, “but I’m starving now.”

  “Is it nearly done?”

  “A lot of it’s done, yes.”

  “Well, dinner’s nearly ready.”

  Judy walked away and Cara followed. She paused in the hallway to stare at the stained glass window. That too could be a picture from Marvels. The mermaids were absent from their city because they were up in the storms of the world, assaulting sailing ships, seeking husbands to drown. She climbed the stairs to stand directly beneath the window. How strange. She hadn’t noticed before but the creatures reaching up to the terrified sailors weren’t mermaids at all—they were male. These creatures were lithe and strong, with wet shawls of hair clinging to their pale flesh. Their faces were like Minny’s, somewhat fishlike but still beautiful. The ship had rolled on its side and soon the sailors would drown. Irresistible arms would drag them down into the merciless waves, but not in desire. Cara could see now that in the distance, beyond the struggling ship, were the lights of home—the coast, the village, so near. And the women were watching there, in a row at the seashore, drenched by rain, their hair hanging down like weed.

  No. There were no such details, just murky colors and suggestion.

  Cara shivered and ran back down the stairs to the warmth of the dining room and another appetizing dinner.

  §

  She was working again. She could lift the tissues with one hand and let them float down on the page waiting to be preserved. No other action was required. Simply the heat of her hand against the fibers caused them to meld. The tissues sank into the pages, became invisible.

  Her steps led her back to the heart of the city. As the pages turned, so did the pathways. Now the temple was ahead of her again, its summit haloed in a pulsing glow. She saw presently that an immense jellyfish enclosed it, tentacles hanging down, dotted with pinpricks of radiance like fairy lights.

  She became aware of movement in the doorway to the temple, which must be the rear entrance, since she’d not yet returned to the front. At ground level, something seethed. As she drew nearer, she saw these were small creatures, which were half swimming, half crawling—very swiftly. Soon they were swarming round her feet, almost tripping her up. What were they? Some eight inches long, slim like fishes, yet with rudimentary limbs. They had gills, small round heads. They were fry—more developed than tadpoles—making for land. Although still drawn to the temple, she had to follow these little creatures. She had to find out where they were going and why. There were so many of them. All along the ocean floor they scrabbled and flapped, and then the safe walls of the city were behind them and the terrible dark and cold of the open sea surrounded them. The fry were bigger now, yet still defenseless. Lithe forms undulated in to take bites of the vulnerable swarm, fishes with cruel teeth. Still the survivors struggled on. When finally they reached the surface, crawling on to the land, dawn had come. And then the vicious seabirds came down to take their fill. Now, thin shrieks filled Cara’s ears, as the fry were snatched and taken. Grimly, those who escaped beaks and talons hurtled on. The women of Mordarras were waiting for them beyond the tide, calling, leaning down to pat their bent knees, encouraging, begging.

  By the time the little creatures had reached the dry sand, they were running on two legs, upright, their plump white arms held out to the women. Little girls. A dozen little girls. Thousands more dead behind them.

  Running with them, Cara could see that the women were sobbing, yet still encouraging and calling. For their daughters. Birds still tried to take the children, but Cara beat at them with wild arms, screamed in anger. The moment came when the girls were within reach of the women, who grabbed at them desperately. There were trills of joy and relief. Far more than a dozen women, though. But who could tell which child belonged to whom? All the women looked the same, as did the girls.

  The greedy sea birds circled and screamed, but they’d taken all they were allowed. The rite of passage was done. The daughters had come home to their mothers.

  §

  Cara woke and sat upright in bed, panting. Her hair was wet with sweat, as was her skin and the bedclothes around her. She clawed herself into her dressing-gown and on bare feet ran downstairs. The stained-glass window in the hall glowed softly, lit by the moon, perhaps. Cara went to the library, turned on the desk light. She turned the last few pages of the book hurriedly—they were all laminated. But she’d been in bed, hadn’t she? Had she finished this work in her sleep, then somnambulantly returned to her room? There were the pictures of the daughters of Mordarras making their arduous journey from the city beneath the sea to land. One crucial aspect of the story didn’t appear in the book. How did the process ac
tually work? Did the mermen come to land to mate with the women, then take the spawn back with them? Or did the women take on fish tails and dive beneath the waves to join their husbands for the marriage rites? But when the spawn hatched no fathers appeared to protect them during that horrifying journey through the predators. Of course, if every child survived there would be far too many of them. How cruel, though, how barbaric. Yet, little different from the way baby turtles started life, Cara thought. Just the cruel barbarism of Nature herself. The strongest survived—or the luckiest.

  From what Cara could discern from the last few pictures, the girls grew quickly. Four seasons were shown to pass, so that within only a year or so, the girls were women—or looked like women. Some returned to the sea, and their sisters waved to them from the shoreline. Some, Cara thought, must always stay on the land to maintain the ancient ways. And then a season would come when the lady of the house on the cliff would open the book and speak the words that would make things happen all over again.

  Cara glanced up at the stained-glass window and it seemed to her that the abstract pattern within it was moving, the colors swirling to create something tangible. She could see an immense creature, somehow not understandable to her mind even though she could discern its details: a suggestion of the arms of an octopus, myriad arms, a great goatlike eye, a maw of anemone tendrils. Silhouettes clustered about it, men who were not entirely men and not entirely fish. Their arms were held up as if in supplication or worship. And then the colors ran down, as if they were a child’s paints doused with water, and the picture swirled into abstract patterns once more.

  Cara felt—knew now—that the De La Meres had brought back rather more than material treasures from their travels.

  Dazed, holding her breath, and in fact finding it hard to breathe, Cara turned to the very last page of Marvels of the Deeps. All that was on it were seven sentences, composed like a poem, but of words she could neither understand nor pronounce.

  §

  At breakfast the next day, Cara said to Judy. “The book is finished. Will you tell your grandmother?”

  Judy raised her eyes from the magazine she was perusing. “OK.”

  “I’m going into the village this morning. I’ll leave tomorrow, if that’s all right.”

  “Sure, don’t start your drive today. The weather’s bad again.”

  A rare moment of warmth from Judy, Cara thought, most likely because soon she would be gone.

  §

  Cara drove down to Mordarras and parked on the sea front. Through the rain, she could see children splashing around the rock pools as their mothers collected shellfish. She wasn’t surprised. In the post office, she asked for tea and sat at one of the tables. The excited shouts of the children came to her ears as she sat waiting for her order.

  When Sissy arrived with a tray, Cara said, “It happened last night, didn’t it?”

  Sissy stared at her. “What, m’love?”

  “The children came.”

  Before she could say anything further, Sissy said, “It’s half term, m’love,” and moved away quickly to the back room of her shop.

  Cara sipped her tea. Outsider. They’d never confide in her, include her.

  Sissy did not reappear, so Cara left some money on the table and went outside. The rain had thinned to a hardly more than a mist. She considered going down to the beach but then decided against it. They might not all be girls. They might be different ages and not all look the same.

  Cara trudged back to her car and returned to Maples.

  Once there, she searched for Minny but the woman wasn’t to be found. Neither was Judy. She presumed Mrs. De La Mere was in her private rooms and knew she couldn’t intrude there. The house felt empty and cold. Cara went to the library and examined her work. No, this can’t be real. It’s a story book, a fairy tale. A story you might want to be real.

  For the rest of the day Cara looked through the books in the library. Many were extremely old and valuable, but there were no more mysterious tomes to further her knowledge of what lay within the pages of Marvels of the Deeps. Occasionally, she went back to look at the pictures. There was an ache in her belly, for tomorrow she would leave Maples and no one would stop her or ask her to stay. She’d done what she’d been hired to do.

  At dinner, Mrs. De La Mere complained of tiredness, and did indeed appear frail and exhausted. Perhaps she’d had a busy night. “I can’t stay up long, my dear,” she said. “But thank you so much for all you’ve done. And so quickly too! You’ve earned a bonus for that.”

  “Really, there’s no need…” Cara began feebly.

  “Nonsense,” interrupted Mrs. De La Mere. She paused. “And it’s quite safe now for the children to look at the book?”

  “Well, perhaps you could turn the pages for them, but use gloves, Mrs. De La Mere, please. I wouldn’t let many people handle the book again.”

  “Well, that’s better than nothing, I suppose.”

  Cara fixed Mrs. De La Mere with a stare and the woman returned it blandly. “It’s quite a story,” Cara said.

  “It’s a wonderful story,” said Mrs. De La Mere.

  §

  When she went to her bedroom, Cara was in no mood for sleep. She sat by the window, gazing out at the restless sea. There was nothing untoward to witness. Idly, she ran her hands over the radiator beneath the window. Then she began to tap. Various patterns and rhythms. Please answer me… I will come to you. I will…

  Nothing.

  She had to look at the book one last time, so went back downstairs. The house was silent and still. All she could hear was a clock ticking.

  In the library, she found the book had gone. Mrs. De La Mere must have put it away somewhere, denying her that last glimpse of a hidden world. Cara stared up at the stained-glass window, tried to interpret its random pattern, force an image to form. No picture within the swirls would show itself to her, but even so, she wanted to believe it was there, for those who had eyes to see.

  Mnemeros

  R.A. Kaelin

  Rural Texas is just rotten with ghost towns. I’m tempted to say that the past dies hard, but the truth is that it’s more forgotten than anything else. Folks just have more to think about than the ramshackle farmhouses in their pastures.

  Now, seeing as it was a two-hour drive to town, entertainment had to be found and it had to be made. That’s why I started thrusting open the doors to dilapidated shacks, armed only with a few vague stories from octogenarians and a pocketknife. If I was lucky, I’d come back home with some kind of treasure—a chipped knick-knack, a bent branding iron from some long-dead ranch, severe brown medicine bottles stuffed with earth. We’d clean them up and stack them on top of the fridge. Humor me; there was no such thing as the Internet back then, and only two television channels to boot.

  I used to get some real quality leads out of an old River Rat, a friend of my father’s, who had zero qualms about closet skeletons.

  “Wanna see something crazy? Then go down to the river,” he told me. “There are carved stones down there that’ve been around since before the Comanches.”

  “Where at?” I asked.

  “Not too far from your place. You take the farmer’s road down past the Ross’s pasture, the road by the old church, right? When you get down the cliffs, just go upriver. You’ll find them. But I gotta warn you. You don’t touch those stones, and you don’t touch the tar coming out of them. Some kinda poison. And then there’s the River Things. They’ll drag you underwater if they can catch you.”

  The hair stood up on the back of my neck. Usually, nobody ever talked about the River Things; they only talked around them. You didn’t go down to the river after dark. You didn’t go to certain parts of the river without your gun—and other parts you didn’t visit at all. Official reasons were quicksand, rattlesnakes, rabid wildlife, and, sometimes, a long, pointed silence. If you were a kid or an outsider, you had to learn for yourself: there was no mountain lion half as bad as what lingered in that
silence.

  The River Rat kept talking. “Back in 1876, when old Rath built his saloon, he used the stones off the river. Made the Comanches furious—they attacked ’im for it, and we sent an expedition as far as Lubbock to teach them a lesson. Never could catch them, though. At the time, Rath City folks thought it was some religious tomfoolery. It wasn’t; turns out those Comanches were wise to something we didn’t know. Whole town of Rath City disappeared in a night. Gramps said you could hear screaming down on the Brazos for weeks.”

  By “whole town,” he meant a population of about two hundred or so. We can’t keep them much bigger down here.

  “Then they took all the stones back, one by one,” he said. “And it was like Rath City never was.”

  “And by ‘they,’ you mean the River Things, right?” I asked.

  “Yep!” he said. Before I could ask him anything else, he turned on the TV and shooed me off.

  If you don’t think I planned to go down to the river that very Saturday, you don’t know me at all.

  §

  No one blinked twice when I said that I was taking the scenic route around the Brazos. I braided my hair and packed the saddlebags with a simple lunch as usual. However, when it came time to saddle the horse, I nabbed Pistol, Mom’s blocky bay. He was a racetrack reject who could cut cattle as quick as a wink. And although I’ve always been a believer in leaving a creature alone if it’s minding its own business, I brought my brother’s .22 and a box of shells along. If Mom had been paying more attention, she might’ve asked me what the hell I was doing.

  I rode down the dirt road to the river, which snakes across the landscape like a groping alien limb. I still remember how fresh the day was—one of those clear, cool days in the late spring, just before the summer sun baked the soil into crackled plates. We’d had buckets of rain and hail and a couple of tornado watches just the day before, and the road was rutted with murky puddles. The distant skies were still bruised black-blue and forked with lightning. As for me, I was lost in my own thoughts: meditating on the squeak of the saddle, the healthy scent of the horse, and the slop of mud beneath his hooves.